


Odyssey

by pukeandcry



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 11 years is a real long time, 2017-2018 NHL Season, Canon Compliant, M/M, Stanley Cup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-07-25 20:53:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16205459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukeandcry/pseuds/pukeandcry
Summary: And then Sasha was putting the jersey over Backstrom’s head, and trying to remember how to saywelcome, but all he could think was,please. He didn’t know what he was asking for, but it felt imperative all the same.Nicke wouldn’t come for another year after that, it had turned out, and Sasha had felt a low thrum of displeasure over it the whole season. He couldn’t express why, or how, but he had the strong impression that he was waiting for something to start, and that until Backstrom arrived, it wouldn’t.Now, he thinks he’d probably been right all along.





	Odyssey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spaceyho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceyho/gifts).



> I do so hope you enjoy this, recipient!
> 
> So this story pings back and forth between the start of the 2017-18 Caps season and several other points in the past, from Ovi's rookie year until the end of the 2016-17 season, and is canon compliant to the degree I felt like paying attention to particular minutiae like dates and stats and stuff (so: mostly, but not entirely). It... came out a little more melancholy that I intended, but it's also very much meant to be read with an understanding of how the 2017-18 season ends for the Caps (SPOILER ALERT: REAL WELL!!!), which I say just because even though that isn't shown at all (this story only goes up til November 2017), it colors a lot of the narrative within. ANYWAY! I hope you enjoy the story about how eleven years is a fucking long time to try and win a Cup.
> 
> Content note: Ovi's wife does appear in this story a few times, but isn't a major focus, and is fully in the loop with everything that goes on between Ovi and Nicke. So, no infidelity, but yes real life spouse.

When Sasha arrived in Washington in 2005, the city was, objectively, underwhelming. It was boring, seemingly half-finished and a little soulless, and no one in it gave half a shit about hockey. Despite its constant low-level buzz of activity and movement it felt somehow flat compared to Moscow, like a pencil sketch version of a color photograph. There wasn’t much to endear Sasha to his new home.

Against all reason, he immediately loved it anyway.

Maybe the air smelled weird and felt too heavy, but Sasha was adaptable. Maybe everyone rushing around in suits on the streets seemed strange and distant and a little uncanny, but Sasha had charmed worse. Maybe no one gave a shit about the Caps yet, but Sasha would make them.

This was his city. This was his home. This was his life. He would love it, because that was the only way he knew how to do things.

Sasha already knew that he tended to fall in love with things that would never really love him back, anyway.

-

Sasha knows he’s not _smart_ , precisely, but he’d never felt stupid until he met Nicke.

It was a little absurd. At eighteen, Sasha was an adult, at least officially, and it had been a long time since he’d felt like only half of a person, unsure of who he was and how that worked as part of the world around him. To an extent, his life had required him to develop a strong sense of self early on, but he suspected it was also just part of him, the way he was made. He was Alexander Ovechkin. He loved dogs and playing hockey and moving until he couldn’t anymore. What else was there to know? If he didn’t fit someplace, with some _one_ , then, well, that was too bad, but it wasn’t worth worrying about.

Then, all the rumbles about the new center management was eyeing. It wasn’t surprising – or at least, not in the sense of how the management was eager to develop a real team, a _franchise_. The surprising part was how those rumbles started to involve Sasha personally, in a way he hadn’t anticipated, even if maybe he should have. He wasn’t exactly top brass in the Caps organization, but after his rookie year it had become pretty evident that he was being positioned to become a pillar of the team. Ted would find him, sometimes, and casually mention things to Sasha about players they were scouting or hires they were making that were certainly not casual at all. Sasha was pretty sure it wasn’t anything he was reporting to, say, Feds or Nylander.

But that was fine. If they wanted to ask Sasha what he thought of this player or that, he could answer. He didn’t always have much of an opinion, but Sasha wanted to show that he was there for the _team_ , fully and completely, not just on the ice but behind the scenes as. It would be a demonstration of his capacity for good leadership, to take interest in the player development and the draft and all that.

And then he saw Nicke’s tape.

At the draft, Sasha hadn’t realized why he felt so weird until just a moment before he went on stage, the jersey clutched in his hands, but then it hit him: he was _nervous_.

He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Not when it came to anything to do with hockey, at least.

Sasha had never been shy about his English, imperfect as it could be sometimes – not like Sanya – but suddenly the script he’d been mouthing to himself, parroted back to George on the floor, went entirely out of his head. He tried to think of it in Russian, at least, but even then it felt slippery. Was he supposed to say “the Capitals?” “The _Washington_ Capitals”? What was the word for _happy_ that George had used, the one that sounded a little more professional and detached?

When he was pointed toward the microphone, he tried his best not to fumble his words too horrendously, and was relieved he could step back by the time he spotted Backstrom’s blond hair bobbing towards them. Sasha was pretty sure that if he tried to conjure up any more words while looking directly at Backstrom, all that would have come out would be incomprehensible noise. It wasn’t his fault; Backstrom was just fascinating to watch.

He had a serious expression on his soft face – somehow he looked younger now than when Sasha had seen him in Riga – and seemed so utterly unflappable, even in the whirlwind around them, that Sasha felt even more flustered by sheer contrast.

And then he was putting the jersey over Backstrom’s head, and trying to remember how to say _welcome_ , but all he could think was, _please_. He didn’t know what he was asking for, but it felt imperative all the same.

Nicke wouldn’t come for another year after that, it had turned out, and Sasha had felt a low thrum of displeasure over it the whole season. He couldn’t express why, or how, but he had the strong impression that he was waiting for something to start, and that until Backstrom arrived, it wouldn’t.

Now, he thinks he’d probably been right all along.

-

In business class, Sasha stretches out his legs. The little airplane on the screen in front of him was hovering somewhere over Lithuania, its blue path to Washington stretching out ahead of it. Seven more hours, or so. Then he’ll be home.

Soon his little plane icon will drift across Stockholm. He can’t remember exactly where Gävle is in relation to Stockholm – further up, he’s pretty sure, but that’s as precise as he can get. He doesn’t care. He just wants to float over it, and know Gävle and all the mysteries it contains – that goat, and the weird food, and Nicke and his house with the stupid personalized driveway that Sasha delighted in – are right where he left them, directly below his feet. He hasn’t been to Sweden in years. It feels farther away than it used to.

There’s clouds, but when Sasha looks out the window, he can see glimpses of the Baltic Sea. _Here I come, Nicky_ , he thinks, and then feels embarrassed about it. He doesn’t even know if Nicke’s still at home, or if he’s back in Washington already.

Sasha used to know everything about Nicke. He used to know where he was at all times, and when he was cranky because he was hungry, or cranky because someone – a teammate, an opponent, himself – hadn’t played up to his standards, or cranky because sometimes he was just cranky, and that was when Sasha loved him best. He used to know when to pull up in front of Nicke’s place to drive him to practice in the morning, down to the minute, an arrangement they never talked about because they never needed to. He used to watch television shows or movies and hear a line and think, _Nicke will laugh at that_ , and be right when they watched it together later. He used to be able to _sense_ Nicke near him, even if he couldn’t hear him or see him, which was either magic or something called proprioception, depending on if you asked Willy or Brooks. Sasha didn’t care what it was; he just knew that it was something useful, because things – hockey things, but also just _life_ things – were always better when Nicke was near him.

Now he can’t even place Nicke on a continent with any confidence in his accuracy.

There’s wifi on the plane. He could text Nicke and ask where he is, but he’s not sure Nicke would appreciate it.

He opens his messages and uses one finger to slowly type out _hello, are u back yet backy?_ and then deletes it without hitting send.

He’ll know in seven hours or so, anyway.

-

The first time he really made Nicke laugh, a few weeks into Nicke’s rookie season, Sasha felt like he’d won the lottery.

Nicke and Sanya Semin had been staring coolly at each other in the hallway outside the weight room one afternoon. Sasha wanted a coke after his cool down, and was lumbering around until he found someone who could make one appear, but he stopped when he turned a corner and spotted the two of them there, eyeballing each other silently like two cats waiting to see what the other would do. Sasha couldn’t tell if he’d interrupted them in the middle of a conversation and they’d shut up when they heard someone coming, or if they’d just been standing there like that, silent and suspicious.

Whatever was going to develop, Sasha was sure it would be very interesting.

“Hello!” he boomed, partly to see if it would snap them out of their weird trance, and also because Sanya was always a little jumpy and Sasha knew it would annoy him. “What you do? I look, can’t find friend to talk to. Very sad. Now I see. You both sneak off together.” He pretended – mostly pretended – to be theatrically put out about it, and Sanya rolled his eyes. It only encouraged Sasha. “Not good place for, ah, date.”

Nicke glanced askance at him, a weird twitch pulling at the edge of his mouth. It took Sasha a moment to realize it was the very start of a smile. Sanya just narrowed his eyes.

Sasha grinned delightedly at both reactions.

“You’re always telling me to make new friends,” Sanya said flatly in Russian. “Here I am.”

Sasha snorted, but turned to Nicke as well. His Russian, Sasha knew, was very limited and purely functional: skate, shoot, _davai_. It was annoying not to know what was being said around you.

“Sanya say you too pretty to take out in public,” Sasha said to him. “People get jealous.”

Nicke’s turned his round face to stare at Sasha, now, pale eyes blinking for a moment. God, he was _something_. Sasha knew that already, but to have all of Nicke’s attention turned on him so directly, so up close, and about nothing to do with hockey – Sasha could feel it keying him up. He wanted to… he didn’t know. Do something impressive. Make a big joke. Demonstrate _somehow_ that he was worth Nicke looking at.

“Sanya don’t tell _me_ that anymore,” he said instead, and then, miraculously, Nicke’s face changed, went soft and a little squidgy around his eyes, and he _laughed_. It was weird and a little barking in a way that seemed incongruous with Nicke’s sense of self-containment, and the best sound Sasha had ever heard.

“Yes,” Nicke said carefully. His English wasn’t much better than his Russian, honestly. “Look at your face.”

Sasha was so enraptured already that it took him a moment to realize that Nicke was making a joke _back_ , and when he did, he laughed so hard he had to bend down and rest his forearms on top of his thighs.

“Good lord,” Sanya said mildly from somewhere a hundred miles away, and Sasha vaguely registered the sound of his footsteps going off to skulk somewhere, but he barely noticed. When he stood up, Nicke was grinning in a very self-satisfied way, a smirk yanking his mouth into a weird, wonderful shape.

“I want a coke,” Sasha said when he had finally recovered, and put his hand on Nicke’s elbow where it crooked, both of his hands shoved in the kangaroo pocket of his new Capitals sweatshirt. “You come and tell me I’m ugly more, okay?” He couldn’t imagine a more wonderful way to spend his time.

“Yes,” Nicke said softly beside him, and followed Sasha around the staff offices for the next ten minutes until they finally found a mini-fridge under one of the goalie coach’s desks. He made Nicke split the can of coke with him, passing it back and forth as they sat leaned against a wall. Nicke drank exactly half of it, then took out a tin from his sweatshirt pocket and shoved one of those Swedish tobacco packets Sasha recognized from Nylander inside his lip.

“We are going to be very good this year,” Sasha said confidently.

“Yeah?” Nicke asked him. His face was suddenly open and earnest in a way Sasha hadn’t yet seen, at least not directed at him, and it felt like the sun. He would do anything to be worthy of that look, he decided.

“Promise,” he said, and even when the the end of their first season together came sooner than either of them wanted, he still thought he’d done a fairly good job of keeping it.

-

Sasha’s house in Washington has been thoroughly scrubbed by the cleaning service, and when he unlocks the door for the first time in two months the scent of bleach almost burns his nose. It’s quiet and a little tomb-like; he turns on his unspeakably expensive stereo system right away, so it feels like he’s not alone.

Nastya will be there in a few days; it’ll be better then. Sasha knows he’s never done well without someone serving as an anchor, a tether to keep him from bouncing around too much or freezing completely, but he’s suddenly determined to try his best to be alone at least until her flight gets in.

Sasha is about to turn thirty-two, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself without another person around to love.

He’d always thought that was an asset, but maybe – maybe not. Maybe it’s been a weakness all along. For the first time, lately, he’s started to feel old, and along with that he’s realized that to love something with all your heart doesn’t necessarily make it permanent.

What part of him exists, solely and entirely, on its own? Is there anything left if you strip away who he loves – his mama, his team, the people he keeps close? Sasha doesn’t know, now, and after everything last season, he thinks – maybe he needs to know.

Suddenly, it feels more imperative than ever.

In the background, the air conditioner clicks on, and Sasha shakes his head, deciding to go for a run until it’s too dark to see anymore. He’s not qualified for these types of thoughts, and throwing his body into action is a good way to make them stop.

-

Everyone is weird the first week of training camp. Not the good weird, the weird Sasha likes and feels at home with, either. It takes him a couple of days of skating and lazy shooting drills before he realizes what it is: everyone is being _polite_. 

“What the fuck,” he says out loud when he does. Hockey players aren’t supposed to be polite. It messes with the whole energy of the room. 

“What?” Carly asks him from a few feet down the bench, idly picking at his tape job.

Sasha thinks about how to explain it, but he’s not sure he can. It’s the way Burky’s fidgeting alone instead of hanging all over someone, and Whip’s doing that inward hunch thing he does when he’s not sure what to do with himself.

On the other side of the room, Nicke is staring a hole in the back of his locker while he balls a pair of socks together with more concentration than necessary.

Sasha realizes with a sense of horror that he has no fucking idea what to do.

“Nothing,” he tells Carly, shaking his head and grinning. “Hey, you come with me to eat lunch, okay?”

There’s a moment where Carly seems like he’s going to hedge his way out of it, but maybe Sasha’s face is a little more frantic than he’d like, because then Carly relaxes slightly and says “Sure, man. Hey, Lucca’s coming over soon with Gina, maybe he can come. You know he loves you.”

Sasha laughs, and nods, feeling better. Kids, he knows. Kids will only be the good weird. That’s perfect.

“Not as much as he love Holts,” Sasha says happily, and Carly rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t even love _me_ as much as he loves Holts, so.”

Sasha exhales. When Carly finishes changing, he waits for Sasha, and they leave together to go find Carly’s family. Nicke hasn’t stopped staring into the depths of his locker the entire time.

-

After that, Sasha tries his best to force the team out of their funk by sheer force of will, any way he knows how. He brings the rookies to his house to grill, and wrestles Burky to the ground whenever he gets the chance, which always makes Burky feel better, and is fun for Sasha anyway. He resolves to make Braden laugh at least once per day, just because it’s rewarding on a personal level, and asks about everyone’s kids and nieces and nephews and moms and dogs as often as he can.

It does help, especially when Beags immediately joins Sasha’s mission, and in not too long the boys settle back into their weird boundary-less version of a family again. No one can ever resist Beags. It calms Sasha considerably, making him feel like everything is back in its place. Hockey is a game, and hockey is his job, but Sasha’s better at it when his heart is in it, too.

It’s almost normal, except for Nicke.

More than anything, it’s Nicke’s conspicuous absence. Or, not _absence_. He’s _there_ , of course, skating and doing drills and occasionally giving clipped sound bites when he can’t avoid someone from media. But there’s a distance about him that Sasha feels like a missed step in the dark. Nicke is there, but he’s a hundred miles away, too.

And Sasha _gets_ it, kind of. The end of last season, it had been… it had been what it was. Not easy. None of it. Not losing in the same way again, and not everything else before that. If Nicke needs to ignore him now to get through it, Sasha can mostly understand that. It still feels bruised and sunburned even now, and Nicke’s always handled those hard moments differently than Sasha. Sasha can’t keep his emotions on the inside, while Nicke tends to turn everything inward, going into lockdown mode like he’s securing a house against intruders. It’s not surprising, then, that he has to do it now – to shut Sasha out until he’s evened out a little. It’s how they’ve always worked.

But when Sasha really looks at it, that isn’t exactly what’s happening. Nicke isn’t actually ignoring him; he’s treating Sasha like the barest of acquaintances, someone whose name he learned once and can’t quite remember, a vaguely familiar face that Nicke will deign to nod at from across a room before turning away.

Somehow, that’s so much worse. 

Sasha had always thought that if he ever made Nicky hate him, that would be the worst thing possible, but now that Nicke’s looking through him with that thousand yard stare, like Sasha is just – _nothing_ … that’s worse, no question.

When they were still just babies, all Sasha wanted to do was prove he was worthy of Nicke’s attention. It was like being a kid with a crush again – probably because he _was_ a kid with a crush. That had been eleven years ago, though, and a decade is more than enough time for that sort of uneven devotion to settle into something mortal and real. Sasha had seen Nicke losing his temper, being too hard on rookies and too hard on himself and bratty and petulant and a world-class grudge-holder. And likewise Nicke had seen Sasha at his most annoying, his most desperate, his most extreme and overwhelming. Time humanizes everyone, Sasha knows, and luckily the humans that he and Nicke discovered in each other turned out to be suited for each other like a matched pair.

But now, Sasha feels closer to that messy younger version of himself, desperate to find the right phrase or joke, the right trick on the ice or movement off of it or _anything_ at all to get Nicke to look at him again with his little laser-focus stare and grin helplessly. He’s thirty-two and he feels like he’s seventeen again, and he hates it.

Across the practice rink, Nicke is fiddling with his water bottle. They’ll have to start their first unit power play drill soon, and Sasha’s dreading what it will involve: Nicke treating him extremely politely when he has to, calling out plays and angles and then skating away when it’s over without another glance.

Sasha wants to yell, or punch something, or just – yell Nicke’s name until he can’t ignore Sasha anymore. He grits his teeth instead, squares his shoulders and finds his spot on the ice when Trotz’s whistle goes.

-

When they’d been eliminated in Pittsburgh _again_ , Sasha hadn’t even felt angry.

Later, he would – he lost a week in June to a simmering fury, at himself and at everything else around him, focusless and consuming – but as the clock ticked down and it set in that, fuck, it was over, Sasha just felt… tired.

Tired and almost unsurprised. That was the worst part, realizing that this expectation had been hiding deep down in him. He’d never thought of himself as a person to admit defeat; had he been wrong all along?

Breakdown day was torture. Sasha _knew_ he needed to formulate a few good sound bites that spoke to their disappointment without losing hope, to shake his own misery off and refocus on doing his job as captain. He couldn’t, though. He gave the best answer he could, when they asked what went wrong: “I don’t know.”

When he was finally dismissed, he rested his forehead against the wall in the back offices. There were a few people milling around, but no cameras, thank God. Sasha felt like he’d lost something in his internal structure, some key part of himself that kept him upright.

He needed to go home. He needed to get away from hockey, to see Nastya, to see his dogs and remember what there was outside of the despair blooming through him. He needed to see Nicke.

He wasn’t anywhere Sasha could find him, though. Not in the offices or the cafeteria or the workout rooms. After ten minutes of searching, he found Brooks, and asked if he’d seen Nicke.

Brooks had done something with his eyebrows. “He left about an hour ago. His flight’s today. Didn’t he find you? He was making the rounds, saying goodbye to the guys for the summer.”

Sasha blinked. “Oh. Yeah, no, he did,” he lied. “Just wanna see if maybe he don’t leave yet.”

Brooks probably knew he was lying, but he didn’t mention it, just clapped a hand on Sasha’s shoulder grimly. “Hey. Next year, okay?”

Sasha did his best to grin and nod, and then found his keys as quickly as possible and sprinted for his car.

Inside the tinted windows, he rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment.

He hadn’t known Nicke was going back to Sweden. Not right away, at least. Of course he hadn’t. Nicke hadn’t told him, Nicke hadn’t – hadn’t even thought to mention it to Sasha. Just disappeared without a thought. Fuck. He’d known it was a mess between them, but was it really so bad as to warrant that?

It wasn’t like they weren’t both responsible for what happened.

So they’d fucked halfway through the season. Fine, maybe that was stupid, or at least poorly timed. Story of his life, maybe, but Sasha truly had thought that it wouldn’t change anything. Or if it did, that it would only be for the better. It had been so naive, but what else was he supposed to believe?

It had been alright for a while. Hell, maybe it would have been fine if the season had turned out differently. Maybe then they would have – Sasha doesn’t know. Not, like, run off into the sunset together. He’s not stupid. But perhaps if the crushing weight of the season hadn’t been bearing down on them so steadily, the dangling sword of so many expectations just above their heads at all times, they might have been able to at least continue coexisting. Liking each other, even.

Maybe Sasha isn’t just _not smart_. Maybe he really is stupid – not just for Nicke, but in general.

When they were younger, when he said things like that, Nicky would scowl at him, sometimes pinch him in the side. He hated when Sasha insulted himself, even as a joke, somehow seeming to take it personally.

Would Nicke even react now if he knew how stupid Sasha felt? About all of it, everything?

Sasha had no idea.

-

By the end of the preseason, things are mostly back to normal. Tom’s suspension is bullshit, but it does serve as a nice sort of unifier. Nothing brings a team together like a shared sense of outrage. Tom does his sheepish-but-defiant thing, apologizing quietly to Sasha once when they’re alone, but he doesn’t have the hangdog quality about him he would have a couple years ago. He’s sorry for getting suspended because it means he can’t be there to help his team, but he’s not furiously beating himself up about it the way he’s tended to in the past when he thinks he’s fucked up or let someone down.

Sasha lets himself be distracted by that for a while – the weird sense of pride he feels to see Tom getting more sure of himself. He and Nicke used to joke that Tom was their oldest baby; the first rookie they really felt responsible for as “older” guys.

When Latts had been traded, Tom had spiraled a little, but he seems to be doing well, now. Sasha’s equal parts relieved and reassured by that. He supposes it’s nice to see that you can still be alright even after your go-to person is gone. It’s also vaguely humiliating, because Sasha should know that by now – you get over your first “team is team but also team’s not permanent” realization in fucking juniors – as well as the fact that Tom’s his big baby, but still. Nice to know.

Sasha thinks Tom will probably get an A sooner than he thinks, and that’s a nice thought too, nice enough that it carries him through another practice of the new normal: the boys gelling together now in a way that’s good except for how it throws into contrast how far away Nicke feels.

Even so, Sasha feels a bit better now. If things are going to be – things with Nicke, then at least the rest of the team is regrouping well.

He’s on his way back from winding himself on the stationary bike and feeling pretty good, up until the moment he sees Tom’s face going all sad and eyebrow-y as he talks to TJ in the locker room.

“Gonna suck if he goes,” Tom’s saying glumly as Sasha takes off his headphones, and he whips around at that, because, what?

“I know, babe,” TJ says, digging his thumbs into Tom’s shoulder blades, probably working out a knot. “Trades happen though, yeah?”

Sasha could leave it. He’s _tempted_ to leave it, because sometimes it’s just so much easier to pretend that nothing’s wrong.

Then again, when has Sasha ever made anything easy for himself?

“Who?” he says, and Tom and TJ both sort of freeze, like two kids caught doing something against the rules.

“Uh,” Tom says, eyebrows drawing in nervously. He glances nervously at TJ.

“Who getting traded?” Sasha asks.

“No one,” TJ says, moving over to Sasha and putting a placating hand on his shoulder.

Sasha tries not to go tense beneath it. “Babe,” he says, meaningfully, and TJ sighs.

“Okay. It’s not exactly a secret, I guess,” TJ says carefully, and then exhales. “It might be Nicke. He asked.”

Sasha reels.

“You kidding?” he asks, stepping back and out of reach of TJ’s grasp. He’s gotta be kidding. Dumb joke, Sasha doesn’t know why he’d – “Nicke wouldn’t,” Sasha says. He’s not sure who he’s telling, TJ or Tom or himself.

“You should talk to him,” TJ says, gently, and that’s what convinces Sasha that it isn’t a joke. Beside him, Tom looks like a nervous animal, frozen and wide-eyed. Sasha needs to pull it together. Sasha needs to be the adult.

“Okay,” he says, trying to smile. “Just misunderstand, we’ll see.”

TJ doesn’t look convinced as Sasha grins weirdly and walks out into the hall.

He paces for a while, trying to make sense of it. He has to talk to Nicke, he knows, but he decides to wait… at least a week, maybe, to confront Nicke about it. That will give him time to think about what to say, and how to even approach it.

He manages forty-five minutes, and by the time he’s putting on his shoes and tugging his hat on his head to leave Kettler, he’s had a dozen half-finished and unsatisfactory mental rehearsals of how this conversation is going to go, feeling like he’s going to boil over with frantic energy and nerves.

Nicke’s in the front lobby when Sasha walks into it, struggling to balance two takeout boxes, a bottle of Gatorade, and his cell phone in one hand.

He hasn’t seen Sasha. He could stay quiet and let Nicke go, wait to talk until he knows what to say. Because he doesn’t. It’s been long enough that Sasha isn’t sure how to have a real conversation with Nicke anymore; about anything, really, and especially not this.

Sasha should let him go.

Sasha has never been smart.

“Nicke,” he calls too loudly, and Nicke freezes.

When he turns around, waiting stiffly while Sasha approaches, his face is doing a weird imitation of a smile. It’s unnerving.

“Hello,” he says politely, and Sasha wants to die.

“You ask for a trade?” he demands. Sasha couldn’t manage a _hi, how are you_ pleasantry right now if his life depended on it. He needs to ask, and he needs to hear no, or else he might shake apart.

Nicke doesn’t say no.

“What…” Sasha begins, but then he doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say. His throat is scratchy and fucked up. “Nicky,” he says, a little desperately. He’s asking for something, but he can’t name what it is.

Nicke’s expression settles into something resolved and flat. “It’s not about you,” he says, and Sasha’s chest does something awful. He doesn’t know which is worse – the idea that Nicke’s lying, or that he’s telling the truth.

They stand there for a long moment, locked in a miserable silence. Sasha wants to shout and grab Nicke by the shoulder and make him do _something_ , and Nicke looks like he’s almost daring him to. Daring Sasha to explode, so Nicke can lock himself down in response.

Sasha takes a step back, instead. He looks at Nicke, standing there and peering at him, and takes another step, and then turns and goes, leaving Nicke there alone.

He can’t stay. Neither one of them can.

-

The first time Sasha had realized in a concrete sort of way that whatever there was between himself and Nicke had morphed into something truly incomprehensible to anyone outside of it was during the 2012 lockout.

Sasha knew he was supposed to be agonizing, relegated back to Moscow with no idea if or when the season might resume. And he was, partly. It was beyond frustrating not to be able to just fucking _play_ , especially for his team.

But he liked Moscow. It wasn’t so bad, being able to be back like this, play for his hometown team and see his family and his friends after August. He would be delighted when it was finally time to go back to Washington, of course, but for now it was sort of nice; a glimpse at an alternate life he might have had.

And now, Nicke was coming.

All in all, Sasha was pretty proud of how easy it had been to convince Nicke. To be fair, Nicke was miserable that the – the whatever it was with the insurance meant he wouldn’t be able to play in Gävle, and Sasha sympathized and raged with him, in the way he always did when the world wronged Nicke in any way. But Sasha had bothered Nicke about it from the very first few days he’d been home, once the idea had taken root in his head almost immediately, texting and calling whenever he had a spare moment to say “You come play here with me, Nicky, okay?” until Nicke would snort and hang up on him.

Sasha consistently took that as a “maybe.”

Apparently it was the barrage of seven almost-identical blurry selfies of Sasha sticking out his bottom lip and looking pathetic in bed with the caption _so sad without u !!!! (((((_ that finally convinced or annoyed Nicke into giving in, because when Sasha wandered out to the balcony in his underwear and checked his phone the morning after sending them he had a message from Nicke.

_I can be there by Thursday if it will get you to shut up._

Sasha whooped so loud the neighbor’s cat startled from where it was sleeping on the next balcony over and retreated crankily inside. Even that made Sasha grin, because it reminded him of Nicke.

He was in such a good mood he even allowed Zhenya to take him out to a club the night before Nicke was due to arrive.

Sasha wasn’t even really sure why Zhenya was still in Moscow, but he couldn’t really blame him. Sasha wouldn’t exactly be in a rush to get back to Magnitogorsk either, and he didn’t even have a tense history with them. And anyway, he was feeling generous. His Nicke was coming, and they would play amazing hockey together, and poor Zhenya had to go back to Magnitka all alone. It really was very sad for him, compared to Sasha’s good luck.

He felt so generous that he insisted on buying all of Zhenya’s drinks once they were at the club. Although even that was also a little to annoy him, what with Sasha insisting on the most expensive table service he could find, which always prickled at Zhenya.

“Remember that I can’t stay _too_ long,” Sasha repeated tipsily for what was likely the fourth or fifth time. He didn’t actually intend to make it an early night, but he couldn’t help it; he wanted to brag. “Backy’s flight gets in quite early, you know?”

Zhenya stared him for a long moment. “You think he’s actually going to come,” he said finally, a smug, mean expression coming over his face. “You really do. Oh, Sasha.”

“Well, and why shouldn’t he?” Sasha really hated Zhenya sometimes. “He said he would. Not everyone is a rotten liar like you are.”

“And not everyone is a fool like you,” Zhenya retorted, setting his empty glass down heavily and immediately picking up a new one. “I understand it, of course,” he continued loudly. “I mean, we’ve all told you something you clearly wanted to hear in order to shut you up once you’ve gotten a stupid idea in your head…”

“Fuck off,” Sasha said angrily, reaching out to shove Zhenya in his weird bony shoulder. Zhenya shoved him right back, both hands on Sasha’s chest, and by the time they were finished half-heartedly grappling with each other they’d broken a table, three glasses and a framed photo hanging on the wall, and were escorted out of the club through the back door.

In the morning Sasha’s jaw hurt where Zhenya had gotten a lucky swing in, and he decided to punish him by ignoring him for the next six months at least, except for when they were on the ice together. Then Sasha would make sure to trip him at least once. That would make him feel better.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Nothing else did, except Nicke coming, just as he’d said he would. He arrived on Thursday and Sasha took one of his most ostentatious cars to pick him up at the airport, because Nicke deserved to be chauffeured in style.

“Jesus,” Nicke said instead of hello, settling into the passenger seat. “You have ugly cars in every country?”

“Hi, baby,” Sasha grinned, revving the engine and peeling out before Nicke even had his seatbelt done up. “Miss you too.”

“God,” Nicke muttered, bracing himself dramatically as Sasha merged and smiling despite his best efforts.

Sasha wasn’t sure he could remember the last time he felt so pleased.

Nicke lived in his apartment, and told Sasha he folded his laundry and scrambled his eggs wrong, and flinched and grimaced when Sasha sped driving them to the rink in the morning. It was wonderful, and even though Sasha knew they were only pretending that this was real life – the two of them in each other’s pockets all the time, almost playing house – he couldn’t find it in himself to mind. He was too happy. If that couldn’t last forever, well, at least he had it for a while.

-

Sasha starts the ‘17-’18 regular season with seven goals in two games. It feels absurd, and wonderful, like speeding in a fast car on an open stretch of road, and Sasha remembers for the first time in a while precisely why he loves the game so much.

God, he had needed that.

Across the ice after Sasha’s second hat trick, Nicke tips his head. It’s not quite a nod – Sasha doesn’t know what it is, exactly, but it’s an acknowledgment, albeit a tiny one. And then Nicke turns away. There are hats falling everywhere, cheers and sirens as Sasha circles the ice and preens, and even if the joy he’s feeling isn’t exactly _diminished_ , he still feels a swift ache of regret and wrongness that something’s missing.

Nastya has a bottle of good champagne uncorked when he gets home, waiting in bed for him in one of his jerseys. Sasha’s smile blooms across his face, and he pulls off his suit while walking across the room and crawls in with her, putting his head straight into her lap.

“Congratulations,” she tells him, scraping her nails through his hair. “You want to celebrate?”

After he makes her come twice, his jersey rucked up around her hips and her thighs clenching around his head, she flops back against the pillow happily, and he puts his head back in her lap. He’s still hard, but he doesn’t feel any urgency to do something about it. Mostly he just likes to make Nastya happy.

“Two hat tricks in two games,” she says eventually, going back to scratching his head. “Planning to do this for the entire season?”

Sasha snorts, pressing his cheek against her thigh. “Even I’m not that good.” Without meaning to, he lets out a heavy sigh.

“Even so, you’re playing so well,” Nastya told him soothingly. Something about the pride in her voice twists Sasha’s stomach oddly.

“Am I?” he asks, and Nastya snorts, flicking the shell of his ear sharply.

“Don’t fish for compliments. You know you are.”

“Okay, yes, fine,” he says. It’s so good for him, having someone around to call him out on it when he’s an ass. “Still, though.”

“Things still aren’t right with him?” she asks, softer now. Nastya knows everything, of course; Sasha can’t imagine living a life where she doesn’t.

They aren’t, but Sasha suddenly doesn’t want to admit it out loud. His silence probably answers for him, anyway.

“Oh, my rabbit,” Nastya says a bit pityingly. She doesn’t pry, or press, just pets Sasha’s hair and stays there, shifting gently beneath him, soft and safe and loving. “Listen,” she continues eventually. “Who are you playing for?” She puts one delicate hand over his chest, tapping gently.

Sasha could never lie. Not in general, and never to her. “Nicke,” he says honestly. It’s the first answer to spring into his brain, and therefore probably the truest.

“Okay,” Nastya says easily, flattening out her palm. Sasha can feel his heart thudding beneath it. He loves her so much, and doesn’t know how to explain any of this to her either. She strokes his hair calmly. “You play for him first. I know if I try to tell you not to, it won’t change anything, because you are you, Sashenka. But as long as that’s true, don’t forget to play for yourself as well. Yes?”

Sasha twists his head to peer up at her. How could he ever say no to her? His beautiful Anastasyia, who loves him and needs him as much as he loves and needs her, but is entirely her own person as well, one who knows that she’ll never quite grasp what it is about Nicky that feels so inextricably tangled up with Sasha himself and doesn’t seem bothered by that fact whatsoever. He feels riotously undeserving of her, sometimes.

“Yes,” he says to her, even if he’s not sure that’s a promise he can keep. He never could stand to disappoint her, or anyone he loved. “I’ll try.”

She sighs in a way that sounds like laughing. “You will,” she tells him, and presses a kiss to his temple before sliding out from underneath him to cross to the en suite. “Up here” – she taps her finger against her temple as she walks, pausing at the doorway – “you have hockey very tangled up with him, you know. But you love the game even if he disappears from all that, like, _poof_. I don’t mean that he will. But if he did. Hockey would still be yours. So you remember that, okay?”

She’s right. She always is. Sasha loves her. “I will,” he says, and then smiles at her, wide and earnest. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

She snorts, and tosses her hair over her shoulder, disappearing into the tiled bathroom. “Well, I know _that_ ,” she says, her voice echoing invisibly as a recessed heat lamp flicks on. “Now go downstairs. I’m taking a bath.”

He’s happy to obey her.

-

In February of 2017, Sasha had felt drained. He wondered – was this what getting old was like? He realized that he’d never really felt old before now. It was disorienting.

It wasn’t that they were losing. Their record was _good_ , they were poised to be a contender for the President’s Trophy, but try as he might, Sasha couldn’t find much joy in that, which felt rotten.

It didn’t help much that, as well as the team was doing, Sasha was having an off season.

Sasha knew every year couldn’t be your best year, but it still galled him, all of it. To be off pace in goals, to sense he wasn’t doing all he could to help the team, to imagine that if something went awry – if they didn’t _finally_ capitalize on how _well-poised_ they were to win it all, a sentiment that kept cropping up with an increasing sense that it was more threat than encouragement – that it would point right back at him, at his own failures as a Captain, unable once again to take his team to the height they deserved.

He couldn’t pinpoint when, exactly, it had happened, but he knew that to win now wasn’t just a lofty aspiration. It was a demand, and if he failed to meet it, there would be repercussions.

“Are you playing as well as you can?” his mama asked when they spoke on the phone after another frustrating game.

“Yes,” he reported to her dutifully. It wasn’t a lie, either; it just wasn’t enough.

Nastya left after Valentine’s Day for Miami, fed up with the freezing rain and February gloom, leaving Sasha to rattle around the house alone, frustrated with everything. In practices, in games, he felt like he was forever off his rhythm, and at home he felt out of place and discomfited by everything, even things that ought to bring him comfort. His bed was uncomfortable, his clothes seemed to fit strangely. Everything was tinged, slightly off, and nothing more so than when his doorbell rang one night after an infuriating home loss.

The weather was horrendous, sleet and rain and gusts of wind. Sasha didn’t know who in their right minds was dropping by; he wasn’t expecting anyone, and least of all the face he saw when he opened the door.

“Hello,” Nicke said, scowling as he tugged his wool hat further down over his damp, curling hair.

Sasha was too surprised to do anything but step aside and let Nicke in.

By the time he unstuck himself and shut the door, Nicke had let himself into the kitchen, navigating it with ease that didn’t match with the grim line of his mouth. Sasha knew Nicke was feeling the tension of the season as well, but it only struck him now, watching Nicke silently open one of Sasha’s best bottles of vodka, that it was weighing on Nicke just as badly as it was on him.

They sat together at the kitchen stools and drank silently. Sasha looked at Nicke, and realized he was getting older as well; not as noticeably as Sasha was, obviously, but there were lines to Nicke’s face that Sasha had never registered before. The softness of his face from when he was eighteen was almost entirely gone.

“Are you tired?” Nicke finally asked, his voice hoarse from yelling during the game.

Sasha wasn’t sure whether he meant tonight, specifically, or in general. “Yes,” he answered anyway.

Anyone else, he would have lied to. With Nicke, he couldn’t.

“Okay,” Nicke said, nodding, and then he picked up the bottle and his glass. “Come on.”

He led them to the finished basement, the plush couch and the enormous TV that all of Sasha’s gaming systems were hooked up to. Nicke barely ever played video games with the team, now, but he threw a controller at Sasha, picked up his own, and silently started up Call of Duty.

Sasha was confused, but he just went along with it. Nicke was here for a reason, and it probably wasn’t just to get drunk and pretend to shoot things. Sasha could wait him out.

By the third time he’d blown himself up unceremoniously, they’d finished plenty more of the vodka, and Nicke was flushed as he threw his controller down, scoffing in irritation.

“It’s stupid,” he said, looking vaguely past Sasha. He must have been tipsy – his accent was starting to come out even more. Two drinks always turned Nicke’s t’s to d’s; four, and his stutter would sometimes emerge.

“Video games?” Sasha asked, trying to sound cheerful. “I know, that’s what you always say, but you want to play, so.” He shrugged expansively.

“We’re _good_ ,” Nicke said, ignoring Sasha. “We play good fucking hockey. We should be able to fucking do it, so why can’t we?”

He didn’t say what, but Sasha knew.

“Who says we can’t?” he said instead, and Nicke scoffed.

“Besides everyone, you mean.”

“Yeah, besides. Don’t fucking care what everyone says, Nicky, neither do you.” Sasha turned the TV off, and shifted to face Nicke, who was still gazing past him, off into the hallway.

“Okay,” Nicke finally agreed, quieter. “I care, though. And that’s…” He made a noise of frustration and dragged his hand down his face. As so many of the little things Nicke did, it summoned a disproportionate sense of fondness in Sasha. Almost ten years, and he was still so stupid for him.

“I know I should not, you know, let this _one thing_ be – be everything,” Nicke struggled to explain, and on instinct Sasha reached out and put his hand on Nicke’s wrists, hoping it would be anchoring.

“Lots of people don’t win it,” Nicke almost whispered. “Doesn’t mean their career wasn’t – wasn’t worth something. I know this. But for me – it would be like that. You know what I mean?”

He looked at Sasha, then, finally, and even though it was a question, Sasha didn’t think it _really_ was, because of course he knew. Of course.

“Nicky,” he said. He couldn’t think of how to explain what was in his head – that everything Nicke felt, Sasha did too, and fuck it if it wasn’t rational or whatever. It was _real_. 

“It’s so frustrating,” Nicke said, and Sasha could feel himself crumbling a little. It was agonizing, to know that Nicke was this torn up. It was one thing for Sasha himself to be, but knowing that Nicke was as well – he couldn’t stand it.

“I know,” he said, and pulled Nicke into a hug. Nicke had never been quite as tactile as Sasha, so he expected Nicke to fuss or stiffen up like he usually did when Sasha draped himself over him, but Nicke might as well have melted.

Sasha contented himself to tuck his nose against Nicke’s hair and enjoy being allowed to manhandle him for a while, and was ready to pull back and pour them both more vodka when Nicke’s weight shifted, and then Sasha was pressed backwards against the cushions, Nicke over him, solid and wide.

“Alex,” he said, and then kissed him.

It was surprising, but – was it?

Sasha had known for a long time that with Nicke, it was – different. He’d always wanted more from Nicke, as much as he could get from him, and this was part of it. He’d wanted to kiss Nicke just like he’d wanted to play gorgeous hockey with Nicke, the best hockey possible, and to make him laugh and annoy him in the car and – everything.

He’d always wondered if it would ever manifest outside of his head. For a while he’d been sure it would, and then it hadn’t, and now –

Now Nicke was biting at him, kissing him hard and pushing his hands under the hem of Sasha’s sweatshirt. They were cold where they pressed against Sasha’s stomach, and Nicke’s tongue was in his mouth, and Sasha felt dizzy and wild.

When Nicke finally pulled back an inch, his expression was a little frantic, and Sasha was panting.

“Nicky,” he said, and then brought his hands up to Nicke’s face. “You… is this…”

Nicke stared at him, and then set his teeth into his lip. “Do you want this?” he asked. And fuck, that wasn’t a fair question. How could Sasha _not_?

“You know,” he said, because Nicke had to. “Do you?”

Nicke nodded, then. And maybe that wasn’t the entirety of it; the wanting had never been a question. Not for Sasha, at least, and he was fairly sure it was the same for Nicke too.

But it was enough, now, and Sasha _was_ tired, and to be near Nicke, to have Nicke _there_ and in his _lap_ – he would always say yes. Always.

He felt detached, almost, watching Nicke sit back and pull off his own sweatshirt, because it seemed so real and so improbable all at once. The strangeness of something so frequently imagined becoming real. Sasha was kissing Nicke, letting Nicke rake at his bare shoulders and leave sharp little marks there – not in his imagination, but for real. Nicke kissed the way Sasha had thought he might, fierce and possessive and then, sometimes, soft.

When Nicke started to shove his hips up against Sasha’s, he snapped back to himself. He could feel Nicke’s dick through his shorts – why the fuck was he wearing shorts in February? – and that made Sasha jerk. “Hey,” he said, and Nicke’s face twisted like he thought Sasha was protesting, like he wanted to _stop_ , which was so far from what Sasha wanted that he laughed.

“No, hold on, okay, I just.” He braced himself and then heaved Nicke over, where he immediately tried to sit up. But Sasha just pressed him back down, and then slid off the couch to his knees.

“Please, Nicky,” he said, because he needed everything. He needed Nicke. He put his hands on Nicke’s thick thighs, let his fingers sprawl up towards his dick. “Please?”

Nicke exhaled heavily, and then snarled, or smiled. Maybe both.

“Please what?” he asked, licking his lips.

“Let me,” Sasha said, and pulled down Nicke’s shorts.

Nicke’s dick was thick and pink, and when Sasha put his mouth around it he moaned. He would do anything to Nicke, anything for Nicke. He was so greedy.

It was unreal, and so hyperreal all at once. Nicke’s hand in Sasha’s hair, his hips thrusting up to meet Sasha’s mouth selfishly, the choked out “fuck” he kept saying above Sasha.

If he had been coordinated enough, Sasha would have reached his free hand into his own sweatpants and jerked himself off, because having Nicke in his mouth was undeniably the most overwhelming thing he’d ever felt. He wasn’t, though, so he braced himself and tried not to explode when Nicke yanked his hair _hard_ and then came.

When he looked up again, they were both panting, the same awed, frantic expression on Nicke’s face that Sasha suspected was also on his. Sasha was about to come just from that, the coating of Nicke’s jizz still in his mouth, but he didn’t want to do anything about it, either. He thought he could probably die here, on his knees in front of Nicke while Nicke ran his thumb along his jaw softly.

“Come upstairs,” Nicke finally said. “We’re too old to fuck on a couch.”

As always, Sasha obeyed.

-

Nastya came home a week later. When Sasha told her what had happened, guilt squirming uselessly in his stomach even though it had no reason to, she merely furrowed her brow and nodded a bit abruptly before retreating to another part of the house. He knew she was only going off to think, that he hadn’t committed any betrayal – Sasha was too old, now, to try to get away with anything, and could talk things through accordingly – but he still felt wretched about it.

But she seemed mostly calm and settled when she reemerged and hour later, joining Sasha on the sofa and putting her feet in his lap.

“Okay. So did it help anything?” she asked. She sounded a little hopeful, but mostly mild, and Sasha exhaled before he answered, “Not really, no.”

-

It’s a relief, in some ways, to be centered by Kuzy for the first month and a half of the season. Sasha thinks that probably he and Nicke would play fine together if they had to, but the idea of it – of going out there with Nicke who was still looking through Sasha at all times, unwilling to even act like they were in the same room – was a little nauseating. Playing with Nicke had always been a little bit magic, and thinking about somehow losing that now, ten years in, was hideous.

He hears a few of the soundbites from Barry, how it wasn’t anything, keeping them on different lines. The old party line about it being like a marriage, a little, something permanent but in perpetual flux, a stupid little joke that made Sasha want to laugh in a hysterical, humorless way.

He knows he’s being dramatic. They’ve played on different lines before. Of course they have. Even though Sasha had always secretly thought of Nicke as _his_ center, even from the beginning, of course Nicke didn’t belong to him. Nicke was Nicke, and Sasha was content to be next to him when he could be and watch in awe when he couldn’t.

But he’d always known they would come back together. Now he’s not sure if they will, and if he even really wants that.

Sasha knows you can get used to about anything with time. He’s just not sure if that’s good or not.

-

Nicke never said anything to him about it after they fucked.

It was fine; Sasha wasn’t, like, sitting at home, wondering when the cute boy he’d let feel him up was going to call or anything. But he’d wondered, that morning when he’d woken up and Nicke had already been gone, what the play would be.

It was no play, it turned out. Nicke didn’t acknowledge any of it: that he’d slept there, in Sasha’s bed, after Sasha fucked him, made him come two more times before they passed out. The desperate way he’d grabbed at Sasha and pulled him on top of him every time too much space got between them. How, the last time, when they were both bleary and exhausted and sticky, Nicke had held very still all of a sudden, clutching Sasha’s face with both hands almost fearfully before kissing him again and fucking himself back on Sasha’s cock.

None of that. It was back to hockey, back to the grim drive that was wearing everyone down, the press to the post season, and then – and then Pittsburgh.

Sasha only brought it up once, after Nicke had left for Sweden without a word, when Sasha was safely back in Russia trying frantically to pull himself together.

He hadn’t meant to, but he’d gotten too drunk at the dacha the night after the cup finals, and couldn’t stop himself from pulling his phone out of his pocket and texting Nicke.

_I know u want to forget what happen but i dont forget it, not none of it. We gonna play good next year. Tell me what u r doing okay???_

Nicke never answered.

-

They lose, they lose, then win and lose and win. It’s barely a full month into the season, and Sasha… Sasha isn’t sure what to make of it. They’re playing alright. Something’s different, and it’s not just the way Nicke’s being. It’s as if no one expects much, or at least, not as much as they have in the past several seasons, and they’re somehow liberated for it.

If this is the new normal, well. Sasha will get used to it.

In November, they lose in Buffalo. Barry corners Sasha after tape review, which isn’t much of a shock. They’re hitting a wall; they all know it, and know they’ll have to adjust, which makes it stupid when Sasha is surprised by what he hears.

“I’m going to run you and Backy together next game,” Barry tells him. “So, you know. The two of you figure out whatever it is you need to figure out, okay?”

Sasha blushes. Of course Barry had noticed, but it was humiliating to hear it confirmed.

“We be okay,” he says, hoping that could be enough. “Don’t worry.”

Barry sighs, although it doesn’t sound like he disbelieves Sasha exactly. “I know. I just have to say it. You’re both the core of this team, and we count on you. Okay?”

Sasha doesn’t expect the way that gets him right in the gut. He’s still reeling on the way back to the hotel, up to his room, even when there’s a knock at his door not long after.

He goes to open it, and can’t even tell if he’s surprised by who’s there.

“Backy. Hey,” he says, a little wary. Instinctively, his body starts to pivot to let Nicke in, but then he thinks otherwise, and stands firm. It’s been months since Nicke said one extraneous word to him, let alone sought him out, and he realizes it smarts. He wonders what it is in Nicke that lets him shut himself off to Sasha, what Sasha lacks.

He expects that Nicke got the same lecture from Trotz, and he’s here to make a stilted awkward speech about being professionals or some shit. Sasha’s already exhausted by it.

“I didn’t ask for a trade,” Nicke says instead, a little stubbornly, and Sasha’s stomach twists. That isn’t what he expected. Fuck.

They probably shouldn’t do this in the hallway.

“Okay,” Sasha says slowly. “Come in?”

Nicke does, sitting down at the foot of Sasha’s bed and setting his hands down on his thighs. He stares at them for a while, not saying anything, while Sasha putters around, filling a glass of water and flipping a few lights on and off before he finally sits beside Nicke. Nicke looks up.

“I didn’t ask for a trade,” he repeats, looking directly at Sasha. “Not exactly. Okay?”

Sasha frowns. “You said you did.”

Nicke presses a hand to his face, sighing. He looks older too, Sasha realizes once again. He wonders when that will stop being surprising. “It’s complicated, yeah? I… fuck.” Nicke’s flustered, and it’s so unusual that Sasha feels genuinely startled by it. “You know more than anyone else. I can’t – if there’s a way I can win, I gotta. You know that. So I say, after this year, it’s okay to start looking. I don’t… I dunno how it’s gonna go, maybe not even anything happens, but... what if I’m forty, fifty, and we never win, and I think, I didn’t do everything I could? Alex… you know.”

He does know. That’s the awful thing. Sasha understands perfectly, and even though he knows he’ll never play anywhere else, he knows that Nicke’s exactly right. They’re here to win, and Nicke wouldn’t be the Nicke Sasha loves if he just gave up on that. Nicke doesn’t ever stop fighting.

Sasha still fucking hates it.

“And it’s that easy for you,” Sasha says, a bit sadly. Something in him feels hollow. He looks down, smiling sadly just a little. “You gonna go away, and that’s it, no big deal.” It stings, but he knows that Nicke’s right. He has to do this.

But then Nicke is reaching over and grabbing Sasha’s chin, forcing him to turn and look at him.

“Of course it’s not so easy,” Nicke says, vehemently. “You really think that?”

“Well,” says Sasha, shrugging sadly. “I dunno, Nicky. You don’t say nothing to me for months, you go back to Sweden, you just – you disappear. Even now you’re back, you still disappear.”

Nicke’s expression is so wounded that Sasha wants to wrench away, but Nicke won’t let him.

“Alex. I don’t _want_ this. Thinking about it, I – you know I always think I’m gonna win the Cup with you. Sometimes I think, why should I bother if it’s somewhere else? But – what else can I do?”

He’s actually _asking_ , Sasha realizes. Nicke wants any other answer in the world. He doesn’t want to go, just as much as Sasha doesn’t want him to.

And there isn’t anything else. There’s no other answer, and Sasha has to be okay with it.

“Okay,” he says, and then leans in to kiss Nicke.

He startles a little, but goes soft after a moment under Sasha’s hands, kissing back. And, oh, Sasha missed him. Sasha misses him already, too. A noise comes up from his throat, or maybe it’s Nicke’s, and they stay there, their game day suits askew, kissing until they have to stop.

“Don’t want you to go,” Sasha says. “But. I get it. If you gotta.”

“I don’t wanna go either,” Nicke says. “But I will if I have to.”

Sasha smiles a little. “Okay. Good. And while you here we play fucking beautiful hockey. Who knows, yeah?” Sasha lets himself grin a little wider. It’s nice, just to smile with Nicke again. “Maybe we win Cup this year.”

He’s not sure if he even really believes that, honestly, but in this moment it doesn’t feel like it matters much. He just needs Nicke to know that he’ll fucking try, as hard as he can. That it’s for Nicke, as much as it’s for himself.

There isn’t much Sasha wouldn’t do for him.

“You know what? Yeah. Maybe we will,” Nicke says wryly. He doesn’t sound terribly convinced either, but it doesn’t matter. He’s here.

“You gonna stay here tonight?” Sasha asks, running a thumb over the corner of Nicke’s mouth.

Nicke rolls his eyes and smiles. “Obviously.”

-

When they’re summoned to start huddling up to go out on the ice against Ottawa, their new line ready to deploy when Barry gives the call, Sasha hangs back for a moment, pulling Nicke by the elbow.

“Hey,” he says, bumping his forehead against Nicke’s. “Give me good pass tonight, yeah?”

Nicke snorts. “I always do.”

They stand there until Sasha knows they have to go or they’ll miss their own entrance, but it’s hard to step away from Nicke.

“Okay,” Nicke finally says. “We gonna do this?” It comes out _dis_ , and Sasha loves it. Loves the way Nicke talks, the way his mouth curls around words and when he’s repressing a grin. He loves the way he plays, and the way he quietly takes care of the rookies, and sneaks his own little jokes into things so easily sometimes people don’t notice. He loves _Nicky_. That hasn’t stopped, not for eleven years, and Sasha doesn’t expect it ever will. If this is their last season playing together, well – maybe that’s not what Sasha would choose, but he’ll enjoy every last fucking second of it.

“Okay, baby,” he says, nudging Nicke’s shoulder. He doesn’t lean away when Sasha does, so neither does Sasha, and they sit there like that, touching easily for the first time in ages. “I get the Cup and I give it to you.”

He probably won’t, and they both know it. But Nicke doesn’t argue. He just smiles, and prods at the gap above Sasha’s glove where the bone of his wrist is showing. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go get it.”

And fuck it, Sasha’s going to try.


End file.
